Three messed-up love stories come to an end in this week’s “Lanterns,” which revolves around a major character death and which also proves the breaking point for our central heroes.
Episode 5 sees the end of Zoe and Will, Zoe and John, and John and Hal. Only one of these left me feeling any kind of anything. I’ll let you guess which.
Lots to cover, and my ring battery is running low, so let’s review the highlights of the fifth episode.
A flashback to 2007 opens the hour. Kerry, who apparently wasn’t quite the model of law-abidance back in the day, is running scared when her car breaks down near Rushville. She pushes it to the diner; soon after she arrives, the two thugs she’s been trying to avoid flank her at the counter. She says she’s not a thief, but one of the men responds that it doesn’t matter: Her father, whom they’ve killed, “was a snitch. That makes you a snitch by association.” They’re about to march her out to the parking lot, where a terrible fate awaits her, when someone swoops in and snaps one of the guy’s necks, then grabs the other.
It’s Zoe. “They’re here to kill you, am I correct?” she asks, incredibly nonchalantly. In short order, she gets the remaining thug to cough up his orders — kill Kerry, take her pinky as proof, bury her — and then slides Kerry a knife can bring the aforementioned digit back to his boss. Once he’s left with Zoe’s threat to kill his entire family if he ever tells anyone the truth, she and Kerry chat. Zoe promises the younger woman “a life, simple, safe, secure. No running. No hiding.” All she wants in return is a promise that, “When the time comes, you’ll protect me like I protected you.” She’s vague on the details when Kerry asks follow-ups, but it doesn’t really matter: Kerry pledges her loyalty to Zoe, who is pleased. “Let’s grow you a new pinky,” she says.
‘Here endeth your training’
Then we’re back in 2016, with John stuck in the crashed car and Hal gloating outside. The Lantern explains he had to take his trainee “off the gameboard,” given that John has been working to replace him. Then he explains that his plan is for Anton’s group and Macon’s militia to keep each other busy while he goes after Zoe. “You were never going to replace me, Junior,” Hal says. “Here endeth your training.” John yells at him to eff himself, and Hal walks away.
Which is great and all, but John’s still trapped, and oops, the car just caught fire. Just then, Zoe appears — thanks to some intel from Will — which seems like a good thing… until she just stands there and watches as his vehicle is engulfed in flames.
While John is toasting, let’s head over to Hal, who’s found Kerry and is yelling at her about sending him on a wild Manhunter chase last episode. She tells him to chill out: Zoe has eyes on them at all times, though she apparently can’t hear everything. So she doesn’t hear Kerry explain to Hal why she’s been covering for the Manhunter in their midst. “I f**king owe her! You can never understand what she gave me,” she says. “A miracle.”
Hal counters that she’s protecting a war criminal. She begs him to leave, because Zoe will destroy the town to get to Hal. He refuses to budge. “Then everything that happens next is on you,” she says. “Are you willing to accept those consequences when they come?”
Zoe’s livesaving bargain with John
John Stewart wakes in the hospital, completely wrapped in gauze. Zoe is by his bed. When he calls her “f**king inhuman,” it confirms things. “So you know what I am,” she says. “Manhunter,” he croaks. He says he didn’t tell the Guardians about her because he doesn’t trust them, and he doesn’t trust them mainly because of how duplicitous they’ve been with Hal. Zoe also makes sure that young Stewart knows that what Anton told him — that the Manhunter was under the protection of the Guardians — is bunk. In fact, the Guardians created the Manhunters.The beings were made to enforce justice. And when they were deemed too brutal, every Manhunter but Zoe was destroyed.
Anywho, Hal’s gonna die, she says, but “I can heal you. I can protect you.” However? “My protection has a price.” Basically, he has to make sure Hal dies, and he’ll get the ring “that is rightfully yours.” She puts a drop of her blood in his eye and tosses him in a scanner that helps regrow his skin, monologuing about why she chose the human persona that she did. (Long story short: Being at a disadvantage in society can be an advantage when it allows you to observe, unobserved.) When the machine finishes, John’s body is completely healed.
She’s just finished telling John that she’s drawn to him because “you really see me,” when Will calls to let her know Anton — off a tip from Hal — is coming for him. In Manhunter language, they talk about how Will is ready to make the ultimate sacrifice, and how he loves her. He thanks her for the extra time she gave him: “I’ve loved every minute of it.”
And then it’s time to go, because Anton and his men have breached Macon’s estate, and Anton is now standing in Will’s office. Anton tests Will, speaking Zoe’s language as he quizzes him about stuff only the Manhunter would know. (And apparently Anton and the Manhunter were together?) Will eventually fails the test, because Zoe “would never welcome death.” So he stabs and kills Macon, ripping out his heart to be 100 percent sure. “Human,” he sneers. Then, via one of Will’s zillion cameras in Rushville, Anton sees Hal standing outside the cafe, saying, “Come get me!”
Zoe dies (for real this time)
Then, things get insane. Red beams from the sky start to blow up the town, destroying buildings and taking out the townsfolk — and there’s only so much ring-assisted blast-blocking Hal can do. In the middle of the chaos, the Halogram pops up to alert Hal that Zoe’s chopper touched down by the water tower. So the Lantern gets there quickly and handcuffs the Manhunter to the ‘copter. But not before she gives an order to “blow the tower!,” which creates black clouds that obscure everything.
Hal manages to take out one of her guards and steal the man’s protective glasses, which allow Hal to see what’s going on within the incapacitating black swirl. And that’s how he knows that Anton is walking toward him, ready to blow himself up for the greater good. Hal tornadoes the alien away so the explosion won’t make an awful situation a hundred times worse. When the Lantern returns, Zoe’s arm is still chained to the helicopter… but the rest of her is gone.
Meanwhile, John overcomes his guard at the hospital, grabs a gun, and is back at the motel when Hal returns, in desperate need of a ring recharge. They fight (it’s UGLY), and John has Hal in a headlock when one of those deathbeam red lasers lock onto the motel. Hal uses the nearly-depleted ring to put up a protective barrier just before a massive explosion hits their room. When the smoke starts to clear, we see John running from the demolished building.
Hal is lying in the debris when Zoe shows up, asking where John is. “He promoted himself,” Hal croaks. “Technically, I promoted him,” she gloats. “Traded his life for yours.” But Hal counters that John isn’t a coward — “If he wanted me dead, he’d do it himself” — and he’s not super concerned when Zoe pulls a gun on him. After all, as he tells the Manhunter, he’s bait. And this is borne out when she turns and finds herself squarely in the sight of John’s rifle scope.
“See you, Zoe,” John says. She smiles. Then he kills her, and doing so makes him cry a little.
John has had enough
After, John slices her heart out of her body; it crystallizes the way Sinestro said it would. Hal is alive but unconscious nearby, and he comes to as John removes the ring from his hand. “Was it worth it?” he asks. John doesn’t say anything, just puts on the ring and watches as a bird lands on some adjacent wreckage. As he leaves with the heart and the lantern, Hal calls, “They replaced me. They’ll replace you!”
Eventually, John and Lianna (aka Laura Guardianney) meet up at the bar. She cheerfully deems the day a “s**tstorm” and admonishes him for not calling earlier, then asks what’s in the bag. “Your sins and consequences,” he answers. “Even we make mistakes,” she says brightly, looking at Zoe’s glittery heart. “All we can do is correct them.”
But John’s got no time for her onward-and-upward platitudes. He says putting the ring on felt “empty,” and that Hal served as a cautionary tale in that he “betrayed everything to keep this ring… and it broke him. Probably doesn’t even remember why he wanted the damn thing.”
He slips the jewelry in question off his finger and places it on the table. “And neither do I.” Then he leaves.
Your turn! What did you think of the episode? Let us know in the comments!
